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“Listen, we have three eligible ladies here looking to find Mr. Right and heeeeere they are,” he spoke as he swung an arm wide towards them.

“Bachelorette Number One comes to us from Hell’s Kitchen, New York. She’s a dominatrix by day and…a dominatrix by night. Say hello to Madame Lilith!” An overhead light shone to reveal a leather clad brunette in head-to-toe black leather and zippers.

“Contestant Number Three is from Des Moines, Iowa. She sings in her church choir and feeds the homeless when she’s not getting straight A’s in college, say hello to Faith Goodwill.” A light shone down from above to illuminate a pale skinned, blue-eyed coed with a bobbed blonde coif.

“And that’s all I can tell you about our bachelorettes. Our bachelor today, who’s been kept offstage in a sound-proof booth is a man who needs no introduction. You know him as Ol’ Scratch, Beelzebub, the Adversary, the Devil himself; he’s hot, he’s horny, ladies and gentlemen, Lucifer!”

A tall, dark-skinned figure with white horns and red eyes wearing a smoking jacket trotted out from backstage. The host went to shake Lucifer’s hand, thought the better of it, and instead gestured for Lucifer to take a seat.

“Okay, Lucifer, we have three ladies who you’ll be questioning, of course. Your job is to select the lady you’d like to go on a date with based on her answers to your questions. Right, let’s start with hellos and hear what they sound like. Bachelorette Number One can you say ‘hello’?”

The dominatrix’s voice cut hard like someone had swiped the air with cold, hard steel. “Hello, Lucifer.”

The young lady looked sideways while trying to force a smile. “I shouldn’t be here?”

“Wonderful!” the host piped. “Lucifer, fire away.”

“Careful what you wish for,” the bachelor whispered low.

The loathsome figure’s voice was almost effeminate though he belched embers. “Bachelorette Number One; I’m usually the one who spoils everyone’s good time. How are you going to make sure I don’t have a good time on our date?” he read off his note cards.

“First, Lucifer,” her voice whipped, “I’m going to squeeze you into a tight leather straight jacket, turn the thermostat up as high as it’ll go to make you sweat, then chain you to the floor and lash you with a cat-o-nine tails until you drown in your own blood. After you’ve paid for dinner, of course.”

“Oo,” Lucifer rose in his chair and turned towards the host, “I might actually like that.” The host simply smiled.

“Bachelorette Number Two,” Lucifer continued, “People think I spend lavishly when I’m actually quite frugal. How are you going to make sure I spend my money on our date?”

“Oh, Lucifer, sweetie,” a Southern baby voice chirped, “I’m going to dress very scantily so you’ll think I’m…ovulating. Then I’m going to have you take me to the casino’s roulette wheel and tell you to keep betting on red while I stroke your big, hard, throbbing…chest,” Candy smoldered, heaving her bosom at the camera. “Then I’m going to slip you a mickey, take your cash and max out your credit cards, then tell you what a good time we had drinking too much last night.”

“Been there,” Lucifer said quietly with raised eyebrows. He nodded and shifted his weight in his chair. “Bachelorette Number Three, what’s the worst thing you want to do that you’ve never done?”

“Well,” Faith started, “There’s another girl in my church choir, Autumn, who usually stands behind me. She likes to poke me in the back during difficult passages and tries to sing over me all the time. Sometimes I think about spiking her Hydroflask with Drano?” Faith winced. “I know that’s terrible! I saw it in a movie once I wasn’t even supposed to be watching. It’s just a daydream. I’m sorry!”

“No, no, no,” Lucifer chimed. He leaned forward in his chair. “Actually, that sounds like a lot of fun, you know, when you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t but you do it anyway. Let me ask you another question.”

The host stepped towards the bachelor and gestured towards the ladies. “Lucifer, wouldn’t you like to ask all of them more questions?” Lucifer snapped his fingers and the host disintegrated into a cloud of ash. The smell of charred beef and earthy tweed blew through the studio and out a stage door that opened itself.

“Bachelorette Number Three – and I’m sorry if this question’s a little more philosophical than you’re used to – why do you think good girls like bad boys so much?”

Faith popped up. “Oh, that’s easy! Every good girl wants to be responsible for reforming a bad boy. If we get a bad boy to accept Jesus, we’ve done the Lord’s work.” The coed deflated then; the wind seemed to come out of her sails. She continued half-heartedly.

“But once they’ve reformed the bad boy, there’s no more work to do. So we dump them for another bad boy. The Lord’s work is never done,” she finished with her head bowed, eyes shut, clutching the gold cross around her neck.

The Devil’s work is never done either, Lucifer thought. He turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, but what if the bad boy is so vain he can’t be redeemed?” the bachelor asked.

“No one is beyond redemption. Anyone can resist temptation with the proper application of love,” Faith stated matter-of-factly. Madame Lilith reached across the middle contestant to whip Faith on the leg with her riding crop.

“Give it a break, Goody Two Shoes,” she snarled.

“Ladies, I’m sorry, I’ve already made my choice,” Lucifer stood up. Two of the bachelorettes pouted. “Time to freshen things up a bit.” The eligible man rubbed his hands together and brought them to his temples as he closed his eyes.

“Madame Lilith, you’re providing a valuable service and I look forward to you working for me in the future. In about ten years in fact. Candy, as a credit analyst, you’re such a cliché where I come from, you’re probably going to wind up under Madame Lilith’s heel. Can’t see I’m not looking forward to that. That leaves Bachelorette Number Three, Faith, who is my clear favorite today. Faith, would you like to come say hello?”

The normally bubbly young lady grimaced as she slid off her chair. She took short steps, not eager to round the divider. As soon as she saw Lucifer, her face scrunched up.

“If I were a lesser man, my feelings would be hurt,” Lucifer said. “But don’t worry about it, I get that reaction all the time.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Faith swayed, “It’s just that I was expecting something more like that really hot guy on that TV show, Lucifer.”

I should’ve never signed that contract, Lucifer grumbled in his head.

“You’re not really going to make me go on a date with you, are you?” Faith asked. “I was tricked into coming on the show by some girls in the choir.” The coed’s eyes lit up when in an attempt to feign something she’d realized earlier; that the campaign had probably been led by Autumn, that bitch. And, more than that, it was probably Lucifer who put the idea in Autumn’s head.

“Of course I am, little lady. When you sign on the dotted line, the deal is sealed. Don’t worry. It won’t be that bad. I’ll be a perfect gentleman…which you know is a lie but we’ll take it slow, I promise. Damn, another lie. Sorry,” Lucifer smiled through gnarly, sharp teeth.

“Oh, okay then. Father O’Shea always says to stand by your decisions.” Faith dropped her shoulders and began to saunter off with her date.

There are not a lot of memories I can call dear. I’ve been around the Sun four dozen or so times now and I admit that it hasn’t all been unicorns and rainbows, though I did live in Hawaii for several years. As it happens, most memories are mired in a struggle against existential grief, apparently satiated only by worldly pleasures such as candy and ice cream. As a child, these items were not as plentifully provided by my parental units as I or any other child would have liked. Instead this task fell to the local ice cream man who, simply by virtue of his wares, was a saint.

His name was Mario if I recall correctly, which I found odd because he was Italian and coming from an Italian family I’d never heard of an Italian with that name. (Only later did I learn I was in fact Sicilian, which may have contributed the confusion.) Mario was probably mid-forties and, despite a gravelly voice, as kind and gentle a man could be without being effeminate. And although he drove the standard boxy white truck which blared tired carnival music, there was no hint of him being the serial killer we all – as adults – imagine ice cream men to be. (Okay, maybe that’s just me.)

Mario had everything – ice cream cones, ice cream sandwiches, fudge pops, popsicles, icees, shakes, candy, trading cards, even small fireworks like sparklers, poppers, caps, and smoke bombs. This in sharp contrast to the hated Mr. Softy ice cream man who always drove through the neighborhood so fast you thought he was a retiree from the Indy 500 circuit. Perhaps he knew the territory belonged to Mario, that Mario offered more than Mr. Softy’s pathetic line-up of four soft ice cream flavors, and/or that he hated kids so why did he even come around? Undoubtedly, his wife had nagged him to get a job, any job.

Mario typically came around the block anywhere between two and five o’clock Monday through Saturday. Though you could never be sure exactly when he’d come around, he would come around. He was as reliable as Mr. Softy driving through the neighborhood at 60mph. In contrast, Mario drove never more than a cool 20mph, so you usually had time to go fetch some money once you heard his music.

Funny, our sensitivity to sound was as heightened as a dogs when it came to the ice cream man. As my friends and I usually played baseball in my yard in the afternoon one of us would inevitably perk our heads up and speak in haste, “Did you hear that?” Then everyone would stop and listen. Was it just the wind? No, no. Wait to be sure…then, “ICE CREAM MAN!” My friends and I would scramble like roaches to go find spare change anywhere; in the junk drawer, between the couch cushions, behind the washer, in mom’s purse. Back then you only needed a dime and you would score something, maybe only a stick of gum; it didn’t really matter what. The only question was once we heard the ice cream man did we have enough time to scavenge any coin? It was more than once that my friends and I, too into our own little world or perhaps it was atmospheric conditions, that we didn’t hear Mario in time, in which we’d politely wave as he passed. In time, whenever we heard Mario coming we instinctively knew how far away he was and how much time we had. By that point, though, Mario’s round were becoming less frequent.

I don’t know what the average career life-expectancy is for ice cream men (or women) but certainly though their numerous transactions they come to know their customers too well, meaning, they know when children have come too far along and have discovered their libido. Can candy and ice cream really via for a youngster’s attention any longer? Not savvy to this possibility, my friends and I often speculated why Mario didn’t come around much anymore. We ultimately concluded, based on no more evidence than greying hair, that Mario was having health problems. We could understand and accept that. For what other reason could this mainstay in our lives abandon us? We certainly couldn’t ask him forthwith; our balls hadn’t dropped yet. Besides, it seemed it would have been impolite. Eventually he stopped coming around altogether. Or perhaps we all moved away. Nothing good lasts forever, but at least there was goodness to be had at all. The symbiotic relationship was good while it lasted. It’s better to reflect on that than the inevitable conclusion least such dwellings drive you mad.

I’m thankful for Mario’s venture into capitalism. He was always kind and always patient as my friends and I aggressively crowded his window, clawing at each other to be the first to order before something ran out. His persona, that corny carny music, that unmistakably box on wheels plastered with vibrant advertisements – for so long it was something certain in a world we hadn’t yet learned was completely bonkers. It was a simpler time, for sure, with no need to analyze the meaning of life, no deeper meaning needed to make sense of it all. Looking back I think we forget how much beauty there is in simplicity. A child needs little more than a shot of dopamine once the sugar hits their bloodstream. A loving family perhaps? A child can have both as long as there’s an ice cream man around.

He went out not at all like he came in; a crotchety old man who didn’t give a crap except to be brushed and fed on time, his wet food served exactly the way he wanted less he walk away with that perpetual look of distain upon his face. Yes, he always had that look on his face, not at all uncommon to cats, that you were a complete idiot. Perhaps he was right – humans, so foolish as to enter voluntarily into the co-enslavement that is pet ownership. People don’t always see it that way, but cats like Knucklehead are nobody’s fool. The closer the end got, the less he suffered them. Everyone’s patience runs out eventually.

The first time I met Knucklehead was when my future wife brought me back to her house after one of our dates. She informed me that her Maine Coon was quite skittish, perhaps something in his stray youth having scarred him so badly he was forever on guard. My future wife said I would never be able to get very close, but alas the first time Knucklehead and I laid eyes upon each other he did grace me with but a sniff, cautiously approaching me then backing away just as slowly as if to intone, “Conceivably, perchance, this one is not a complete moron.”

In the preceding years Knucklehead tolerated me, is the best way to put it. He would allow me to pet him for a few moments from time to time, at least until my wife and I got it in our heads that Knucklehead was lonely and needed a friend. We brought home Niles from the Humane Society one July day and it was hate at first sight. Perhaps in understanding that Niles was my cat friend, Knucklehead revoked my petting privileges for some time. No one speaks much of the memory of cats but they are on par with elephants. I was not allowed to touch Knucklehead anymore until I had learned to master The Brush, which I began at first by always catching Knucklehead when he was asleep. By the time he was roused, he was enjoying himself. Though I eventually redeemed myself, there would always be the Niles Incident between us. At least until my wife and I moved to Hawaii.

The weather in Hawaii agreed with Knucklehead, of which he spoke, “The weather here agrees with me.” Our first few nights in Hawaii he was quite vocal about this fact and strained through many a night to let his people roaming freely outside know that he had arrived. In the past seven years of living in Hawaii, Knucklehead grew less skittish and stopped running every time someone new entered the house. It was as if he reached a point and realized that no human bore him ill will, though to be sure, humans were still idiots but they were harmless enough not to walk away from out of feline nature. Who has that much energy? Kittens.

Feeling at home the last few years, Knucklehead settled into regularly schedule times he expected to be brushed and fed. I’d never known a cat to mark the shifting of the sun throughout the seasons and still know exactly what time it was. “Yes, I know it’s still dark out but it is 7:30am. Get the fucking brush.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)

As the want to move back to the Mainland grew in my wife’s heart, so did Knucklehead protest by staging ‘die-ins’ in which he would give himself things like pancreatitis every four months thereby making us feel he was too sick to fly back to the continental U.S. But time caught up to him, like it will for all of us, and soon he was no longer pretending. Sometimes we’d catch him staring at the wall for unusually long stretches, no longer able to proceed down that already long flowchart cats keep in their head about making key decisions about whether to go to the bathroom. He kept eating, though, but also losing weight. He kept walking around, though, but was obviously uncomfortable sitting down. He kept sticking it to us humans, making us wonder, “Maybe he’ll be alright?” That’s a cat for you, keeping you guessing right ‘til the end because despite all their intelligence, they’re still jerks.

Except Knucklehead. He really was a good boy. He deserves his peace. I hope I was a good father, that I did make him laugh, that I did brush him well, and made his food palatable. If not he’ll be right there with Saint Peter at the pearly gates to whisper in Peter’s ear, “No, not this one. He’s an idiot. He thought I liked him.”

Knucklehead Da Kat passed away on Wednesday, 02.12.2020 after 20 some odd years of shedding wherever the hell he damn well pleased.

There’s never one around when you need it. Moreover, heaven only knows how you’re going to get your hands on anything other than a black or blue one when it really matters. Do pen manufacturers not make that many red pens? When you take into account all the corrections we put to paper, you’d think red pens would be the third most popular choice. But it seems there is a red ink shortage. Is the ink made from the blood of babies and this is apparently unethical? If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s don’t leave a red pen lying around because someone WILL take it. WHO IS STEALING ALL THE PENS? Someone, somewhere has A LOT of pens.

I know you know what I’m talking about. Ever notice that no matter how many pens you put out – on your desk, in a pen holder, chained to a brick – all of them will disappear? If it isn’t a single person taking all the pens then there should still be an equal distribution of pens throughout the world. Sometimes when I go swimming in the ocean I half expect to find a cache not far from shore. Alas, nothing. Honey, do you know where I can find a pen? I ask. Yes, she says, With the missing sock that was eaten by the dryer. Where are all the pens? They’re there when you don’t need them, of course.

The less you need a pen the more likely you are to see one. And how many you see rises in direct proportion to how little you need one. When I’m using Microsoft Word on my laptop, I can see anywhere from 5-10 pens from where I’m sitting. As soon as I reach for a pad of paper, though, they suddenly disappear or at least make themselves scarce. For instance, if I didn’t need a pen and saw one on the kitchen counter, the moment I reached for a piece of paper the pen would instantaneously travel through a wormhole into another room. Pens allegedly reside with us in the macro-sized world but they behave like they are both there and not there in a state of quantum flux. I don’t know why Schrödinger used a cat in his famous thought experiment; he should have used a pen. If pens are not disappearing on their own, we have to go back to assuming it’s a people problem.

If it is indeed a people problem, how long has this been going on? Was this a problem when people were still using an ink well and a quill? It seems like all that equipment would be too hard to steal; not worth the effort. I understand how easy it is to swipe a modern pen, on the other hand. Only…why? What is one’s motivation for swiping another person’s pen? Obviously, whatever one we had disappeared so we must obtain a new one by whatever means necessary in case we suddenly find ourselves signing the deed to a new home. Or perhaps the pen we’ve taken has the name of a Chinese restaurant we haven’t tried yet on it, and we need to remember the restaurant’s name. (We could’ve written the name down with the pen but taking the pen itself is WAY easier.) At least I hope these are possible explanations and not that these random pen thieves are taking pens as some deep-rooted and unconscious desire to make others suffer.

I think we should either start making so many pens that’s it’s impossible for one not to be in any given room at any time or we should stop making them altogether. I know it’s difficult to resolve world hunger but this seems like something we should be able to get a handle on. This madness needs to stop.

[I’ve heard it said it’s a good idea to write your own obituary to 1) Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish in life and 2) So that someone else doesn’t sugarcoat the real you. Okay, I made up number two but this is indeed what I want said about me when I die; the unvarnished truth.]

This weekend, John J. Vinacci went to finally get some goddamn sleep. He passed after robbing a series of banks and GOP coffers, giving all the money to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Amnesty International, and driving off a cliff after being pursued by police.

He was born and raised in New York City – not by wolves as he often claimed – the son of an electrician and a natural multitasker, meaning, a woman. He is almost the youngest of four children but took pride in being his mother’s easiest birth and quietest baby back when they didn’t know to watch out for the quiet ones. Eventually moving to Long Guyland, John attended William Floyd High school whose rallying cry was “We is the champions.” It is amazing that John turned out to be a writer, among other things.

Soon after turning 18, John joined the army knowing that he’d do that someday and wanted to get it over with. It was in the army that he met people from all walks of life and learned that no matter where a person came from they were probably batshit crazy. With some of these batshit crazy people, John guarded warheads (hence the extra pinkie), drank beer, and even formed a garage band that practiced in an attic. John served a total of six years in military service between active duty and the National Guard, mostly out of his deep love for red tape.

John eventually married in his late 30’s, figuring his widowed wife was the least crazy woman he could find that would still be with him. Together they raised two permanent four year olds, meaning cats, Niles aka Crackhead and the immortal Knucklehead who refuses to die no matter how sick he gets. It was also around this time that John attended college at Portland State University as a Philosophy major who excelled at saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time until the skill was perfected.

After completing his degree, John and his wife and their two fascist cats moved to Hawaii where John became a post-secondary teacher to students coming out of the nation’s worst high schools. As a teacher, John demonstrated incalculable patience as he taught students how to think and in some cases what not to believe. (This is to say that because a Youtube video asserts that 60 foot human giants used to roam the earth didn’t make such an assertion true.) Ironically, John was diagnosed with mental illness, which in American society apparently means equating reality with actual reality, and decided to go out with a bang instead of waiting to die at home. He is survived by his wife and two cats, his BC Rich guitar, his comic collection, and a collection of writings that have little to do with any previously mentioned reality.

His memorial service will feature a screening of The Matrix – always take the red pill – and a Tekken video game tournament. Music will be provided by the lesser-known 80’s hair-metal band Y&T. After the service his ashes will be spread wherever they are most likely to make people sneeze.

On the morning of January 13, 2018, an emergency alert flashed across smartphone screens throughout the state of Hawaii.

I had just gotten to work, busy with the task of opening up the school and didn’t even see or hear the alert come across my phone. It wasn’t until one of my students walked in five minutes later that there was any indication of a problem.

Student: (frightened) Did you get the text message?

Me: What text message?

Student: (Shows me her phone) Are we going to die? I was just at Starbucks and they were screaming at me to get out and go find shelter.

Me: (Squinting) Um, no. I’m sure that’s fake. Hackers or something.

I truly was not worried for a while and made a joke to myself that of course I would die just as soon as I got to work. I wasn’t worried because, well, everything is just so calm in the morning when I open up. Also, having been in the military and keeping myself abreast of North Korea’s capabilities (the only ones who would be shooting at us) I was confident they couldn’t hit the most remote island chain in the world even if they actually had fired a missile. But no one else was showing up to school; everyone else was taking the alert seriously.

Student: (On phone, shakily) Mr. John, I just got this alert…

Me: (Rolling eyes even though I shouldn’t be) I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m looking into it. Do what you’ve got to do in the meantime. I’ll call you back.

Immediately thereafter, I called my wife who had also missed the message to see what she could find out. (There is no television at school.) She was annoyed at having her call with her mother interrupted…

After another few student phone calls I noticed the nuclear attack sirens were not sounding. A client even called in to schedule a service, either unaware of the alert or thinking the student services schedule was about to clear up. I didn’t bother to say anything to the client because why make a potentially bad situation worse? I still wasn’t worried.

Then I got to thinking; did Trump tweet another childish insult and set off Kim Jong Un? I mean, that’s plausible. And although any actual inbound missile would probably, hopefully be shot down before hitting the U.S. (Hawaii is a U.S. state, believe it or not), I wouldn’t be surprised if my resident state were sacrificed in order to get the U.S. into a war. My thoughts immediately turned to my wife and our cats. My student interrupted and remarked that she was about to die alone which I quickly replied that she was technically incorrect since she was with me. Then I breathed a sigh of relief because if the threat were real, there would be nothing we could do. Even if we survived the blast, radiation would kill us in short order. Again, having just gotten to work, it figures. Then I chuckled to myself that it would really suck to have just landed here on your first Hawaiian vacation.

A few minutes later the alert that proclaimed THIS IS NOT A DRILL was deemed an accident – really, the emergency alert system just told approximately two million residents and tourist they were about to die – and we could all go about our business. Students eventually filed in, many visibly shaken and apologizing for being late. Did they really think I wasn’t going to understand? I did my best to console those worst affected. I myself was not.

At least not until later. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking how messed up the whole situation was and it kept me awake for at least an hour. Surely, someone should be fired. (“So, Jack, tell me why you left your last job?”) But we have to take some good away from the situation and recognize how unprepared we all were, not that you really can be prepared for such a thing. But, my wife and I currently have a lot of alcohol in the house thanks to the holiday season. I suppose finally getting rid of that bottle of moonshine wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.

Over the past two years, an old friend from high school had been posting humorous updates on his rounds of chemotherapy in his fight against pancreatic cancer. On the morning of January 3, 2018, he succumbed to the disease.

When I met Paul is high school, he was a laid back guy. He was usually happy-go-lucky despite dealing with brain tumors before I even knew him. Yet still, he always had a joke. They weren’t always good jokes, but even a bad joke given a bad situation is better than no joke at all. I always respected that. And then he’d pull out a guitar, literally play three or four notes and say, “You know what that was? Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive.” Paul was a little bit like Wille E. Coyote – he even liked to use the phrase ‘super genius’ – except that he was smarter and kinder.

Despite diseases that afflicted him almost his entire life, Paul marched on and lived his life. He had been dealing with pancreatic cancer for the past five years and even at the end, his posts still had to put a smile on your face. (I forgave all the grammatical mistakes; he had more important things on his mind, I’m sure.) Through all his therapies, he never said he was tired of it or just wanted to give up – he was a fighter. We all think sometimes we’ve got it bad and this upsets us, but Paul’s situation didn’t seem to bother him that much if his posts were any indication.

I regret not having talked to him recently when I had the chance. I would have at least liked to have told him how he’d been immortalized in my book as a superhero, because that’s what he was. He was an average citizen by day, Superman during chemotherapy.

Paul, wherever you may be, I hope you are about to rock…and I salute you.